Get uncomfortable 😲 #123

Back from holiday, I’m re-energised. I know what I want to accomplish and I believe I know how to execute. My recent family holiday allowed me to reflect, relax, read, think and to plan.

I’m trying new things all the time. In a recent Anchor episode, I talked about how, even with ideas like consistency, maybe I’ve got my understanding of what it means wrong. Consistency isn’t about making things the same (in the example of project process). It’s about ‘achieving a level of performance which does not vary greatly in quality over time’. Consistency is about keeping quality.

A theme came to me this morning that I wanted to share and that’s about getting uncomfortable.

Where I’ve learnt the most in these past 12 months is where I’ve tried something new, where I’ve made a mistake or where I’ve done something against convention. An example of that was when I wanted to run a training event, or getting published on the Invision Blog or going on a workshop with Jake Knapp. At the time, unbelievable and unachievable, but I did it, I tried my best and looking back at it now, it now feels really normal.

I now need to work towards the next unachievable goals. I’ve set some and there’s likely some more there too.

Setting unachievable aims, like I mentioned in the last issue, takes you on a journey far greater than setting easy-wins.

Thank you for reading this issue,

-Ross

p.s. I’ve got some free evenings and weekends where I’m available to advise and coach any designers or professionals who want to become better at design. Maybe my 10 years experience might help you. Book a 30 minute call with me here.

I had a chat with Tim Drake, product designer at Etch about how we should start with design research, what it enables businesses to do and what it can help uncover. Listen to the Etch Audio episode here:

This story rings true to me - having not looked at the news for a solid week, then opening my news app to see just utter garbage, or news I don’t need to know, but more importantly, wasting my time reading. John Zeratsky shares views similar to mine.

I’m asked a lot about UX portfolios - what they should look like etc. I’d deem that relationships are more important than portfolios and you can totally MVP-it (use Medium to write two quality case studies for example).